by Sonya Blake
“There are ghosts and gods and witches and demons and spirits and you-name-it.” Felicia sat at the table. “Anything we have a story for has a foothold in reality. You can bet on that.”
A chill spread across the skin of Kaia’s forearms as the kettle began to pop and gurgle on the burner.
“Now, where I come from, New Orleans,” Felicia went on, “we’ve got a diverse array. The Big Easy is known for being a melting pot. You’ve got the Africans, the Spanish, the French, the Native Americans, all boilin’ down together. Pissin’ each other off, but lovin’ each other, too. And that’s where things get interesting. I met a Latina vampire carrying on a love affair with the ghost of a dead African slave who used to be a lycan—that’s a werewolf. She was beside herself to find a way to travel back in time, and she met a Choctaw shaman who gave her a flower to eat and next thing you know, the blood-sucker was gone from the room like that.”
Felicia clapped her hands together and Kaia jumped back against the chair, startled. Part of her mind still bucked against all of this absurdity, but another part cowered in a corner and waited for the rest to come out, knowing it was all real.
“How do you know all of this?” she asked.
“Reading books, mostly. But, like my mother and her mother and her mother before her, I’m a hereditary witch,” Felicia said. “Our tradition comes from a variety of places—all over, really. My mother taught me, and hers taught her. My mother gave me my sight, which she got from her mother, and so on. I suppose that means Claudette and Tessa will have it too.” Felicia rolled her eyes. “If they ever learn to use it. Tessa I don’t think I need to worry about, but Claudette, oh, that girl.” She shook her head and turned her eyes upward in silent prayer.
“So you’re… you’re a…”
“I’m a seer and a witch,” Felicia clarified, pushing her big bright glasses up higher on her nose.
“Okay,” Kaia said. At this point, a witch seemed normal compared to a siren.
The kettle began to sing and Felicia poured the boiling water into the press. “But you shouldn’t forget that you’re not alone out there,” she warned as fragrant steam purled upward, filling the cozy kitchen with the scent of coffee. “I don’t know the clan of sirens in Wapomeq Bay personally, but I do know they’re not friendly.”
Kaia gulped. “Do they really call themselves a clan?” There was something violent and primal about the word she didn’t like.
“I wish I knew more about them,” Felicia admitted. “The siren clan has been mythologized here in Quolobit Harbor for centuries, of course. It was my Joe’s grandmother who told me about them.”
Kaia grimaced.
“My Joe, he’s a marine. Away on duty. That’s why you haven’t met him yet. He’ll be back in March and you can meet him then.”
Kaia opened her mouth to say she wasn’t planning on being around that long, but the way Felicia smiled gave her pause.
“Life never was too easy here in Quolobit Harbor,” Felicia went on, calmly pressing down on the plunger of the coffee press with one hand while she whisked something in a saucepan with the other. “Fishing’s an unpredictable industry, and these northern winter nights get awfully long. Not everyone can handle it. Sure, some folks make shit up to stave off the crazies. But, I’ll tell you—the stories people’ve been telling in Quolobit Harbor for centuries aren’t all fairy tales. Besides, I believe this place calls to the other kind, whatever you’d like to call ‘em. Folks like yourself. There’s something here that draws them in.”
Kaia realized she’d been holding her breath. She released it as Felicia set down a cup of hot chicory and coffee in front of her. It looked and smelled like regular coffee, as far as she could tell. Felicia bustled over with the saucepan and topped it with steaming milk.
“There now, just like Cafe du Monde,” she cooed.
After stirring in sugar, Kaia blew on the top of the coffee and sipped it cautiously. It was hot, creamy, nutty, and delicious. She let out a low hum of approval.
“Good, isn’t it?” Felicia said.
Kaia nodded. They drank in silence for a moment.
“I guess I shouldn’t swim anymore,” Kaia said, at last. “I mean, I’ve lived this long not even knowing what I am—”
“You’d deny yourself the joy of being who you really are?” Felicia scoffed. “Honey, please don’t. If that doesn’t make you sick, it’ll make me sick.”
“But what if the siren shows up again?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Felicia began, cradling her coffee mug in her hands, “you’re stronger than she thinks you are. If you can’t flee, then you fight. Take something out there with you next time you swim. I’ve got an old speargun belonged to Joe’s daddy laying in the garage. Next time she comes at you, chase that bitch down and show her who’s boss.”
After several cups of café au lait, Kaia left Felicia’s house with the speargun and several sachets of angelica root and cedarwood to scatter around the outside of the house for protection.
Chapter Thirty
It was a dream; it had to be a dream. The room around Sam shimmered, undulating and glistening like he was underwater. Part of his mind fought it, tried to pull free, but the larger portion of his consciousness was static as a stone, not wanting to take action. He was being pulled in two directions, caught in a riptide.
Violet and Emory moved around him, both of them naked, their long hair streaming down their backs—Emory’s pale blonde, Violet’s dark as aged mahogany. They spun and chanted, lifting cups of dark liquid high into the air. The octagonal room smelled of strange things—earthy and pungent. Smoke stung his eyes.
Sam looked down and saw that he, too, was without clothing. He wanted to move, to walk out of this strange room with its glistening black walls, but he could not. His feet were pinned to the floor, which was scattered with colorful blankets and embroidered pillows. He wanted to cry out, to scream, but he could barely breathe. He felt like he was moving through water, swaying like a kelp frond rooted to the ocean floor. He hadn’t felt so helpless since the first day he had come to land.
Violet and Emory began to sing together with one voice. A cyclical, crooning chant. He could understand enough to tell that they were communicating with some being whose name he didn’t recognize, holding up their cups of wine and chanting in unison. His ears rang and his head spun, but when Violet held a cup to his lips he opened them and swallowed. She sipped next, her eyes smiling up at him as Emory imitated her. Violet’s twin moved with such a precise impersonation, it appeared as though the two of them truly were mirror images of each other.
Emory moved closer to him on his left side as Violet moved in on his right. Their hands pressed him into a pile of cushions on the floor, where he knelt before them. He was utterly helpless as they lowered him onto his back amid the scattering of silk pillows.
Though he was terrified, his body responded as Emory began to stroke his rising cock and Violet bent to tongue his mouth. He was hyper-aware of each physical sensation—Violet’s silky hair touching his chest, her hot, slick tongue on his lips, Emory’s firm grip and his own pulse against her palm, the brush of her thigh on his. He searched for a distant part of himself that could fight this, but could not find it. Whatever it was that had frightened him a minute ago had melted away, washed from his mind by pure, driven lust.
“Baphomet, we summon thee,” Violet whispered into Sam’s ear.
“Baphomet, join us,” Emory crooned.
Sam wanted to ask who the hell Baphomet was, but he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe for a moment, as if all the air had been sucked from the room. And then, when he did inhale, his body was filled with an atomic blast of energy. He was no longer himself—he was now covered in thick, black hair from the thigh down; his feet were gone and replaced by two black hooves, hard as granite. His head, when he glimpsed his reflection in the windows, was heavy with horns, thick and curving upward.
“Kiss me when you arrive,” Violet
commanded him, and he did.
Sam—or whoever he’d become—gorged himself on Violet’s wine-sweet mouth. He gripped Emory’s hair and pushed her mouth down over the head of his cock, which was engorged far beyond its normal proportions. Violet watched her twin.
“Are you jealous, child?” Sam asked in a voice that was not his own, feeling the weight of his horns as he turned his head to look at her.
Violet’s lips twisted into a smile. “Only a little.”
He guided her to her knees near his furry right hip, opposite Emory, and watched as Violet, too, bent to lick his cock. It had to be twice the size it normally was, he thought, distantly, thinking that this was by far the craziest dream he’d ever had. Together their tongues, soft as velvet, stroked the length of him. He reveled in the twins’ worshipful attention, the pleasing sight of them—two halves of one being.
“Emory,” he said, his voice feeling faraway and foreign. The pale blonde looked up, her full lips open and glistening. “Fuck me, Emory.”
He delighted in the sight of Violet’s brows sweeping together over her eyes, and laughed as her twin straddled him. Emory gasped as he gripped her hips and thrust himself inside her.
“Oh my fucking God,” Emory panted, throwing her eyes to her sister as she rode him, rocking her hips and flexing her spine. “Why’ve you been keeping him to yourself all this time?”
Violet’s gaze burned as she crawled towards him where he lay propped on a pile of pillows. He slipped a hand along her belly and between her legs, and as she kissed him he slid two fingers inside her.
Wake up.
It was a dream. It had to be. There was nothing real about this. He didn’t have hooves and horns in real life. His dick wasn’t that big. Violet had a voracious sexual appetite, that was real enough, but she’d never mentioned anything as kinky as a threesome—with her sister, no less. Even as he heard himself groan with pleasure as Emory writhed on his cock and Violet’s hot, slick pussy tightened around his fingers, he urged himself to wake up.
You don’t want this.
He screamed it inside his mind, but still he hooked his fingers inside Violet and pulled her closer, turning her around and guiding her hips lower over his face so he could taste her. Over the slope of her ass he saw her grab Emory’s long blonde hair and pull it, forcing her head back. She bit and licked her other half’s throat, lowered her head to her breasts and sucked on her nipples.
Wake the fuck up!
The demon, or whatever had overtaken him, wouldn’t let him. He continued licking Violet, even as Emory thrust harder against him. He gripped Violet’s thighs and spread them wide, lapping her from front to back in long, wet strokes until she was dripping onto his chest.
Sam found himself moving after a time, positioning Emory under Violet instead, commanding Emory to pleasure her sister. Violet’s jaw dropped in protest, but she, too, went along with his wishes, widening her thighs and lowering her hips over Emory’s face. He watched in satisfaction as Emory’s pink tongue darted against the cleft between Violet’s legs.
Stop!
His hands took hold of Emory’s milk-white thighs, pushing them up to either side of her ribs, spreading her wide. He looked down at his own hand, rubbing where she was wet and swollen.
This is wrong.
He slid two fingers inside her, up to the hilt, and heard her moan. “Hold her legs,” the strange voice inside him commanded Violet.
She obeyed and gripped both of Emory’s ankles. Emory gasped as Sam slowly drew his dripping fingers out and slid them back in. As he did this, he looked up at Violet—or the demon in him did—watching her eyes widen.
“Do you feel that?” he asked Violet.
Violet nodded.
Inside, Sam was screaming in agony. He wanted out of this crazy dream, however insanely hot it might be. It was the subject of many a man’s fantasies, but not his own.
Emory, meanwhile, was groaning rhythmically with his motion as Violet sat back on her heels and watched.
“Come here,” he commanded her, motioning for her to bend over in front of him.
Emory sighed as he continued touching her before nudging the throbbing head of his enormous cock into Violet’s wetness. She cried out, unprepared for Baphomet’s girth. He threw back his horned head and laughed. The two halves of her cried out together as he thrust into each of them, pulsing to the edge, to the point of pain, and when he found his release, golden and burning, the demon felt them come with him.
*
Sam found himself back on Thursday Island, opening the door of his cabin as the wind howled at his back. It was as if he had just woken up to find himself turning the doorknob, looking over his shoulder at his boat moored near the dock, the small lights of Quolobit Harbor twinkling in the otherwise dark mass of land to the west. Heavy exhaustion weighed his limbs. Turning away, he puked into a large pot of shriveled basil stalks beside the door.
He stumbled into the house to find it completely dark. Joni Mitchell assailed him, clawing at his shins. He shook her off and poured himself a glass of water, sucking it down before holding a match to the lantern on the kitchen table. Dull, sinking dread filled him as he carried the lantern into the bedroom. There, on the easel, was the painting he had started of Kaia. It was the last thing he could remember before he had blacked out.
“What the fuck…?” he muttered, rubbing a hand to his aching head.
Last he could recall, he’d been standing right here with a paintbrush in hand, trying to get just the right blend of colors for Kaia’s fiery curls. After that—he didn’t know. The whole day was gone. At least, he hoped it had just been one day.
And Kaia—where the hell was she? With no boat, there was only one way she could’ve gotten off Thursday Island. He leaned on the bed and looked out across the water toward Foley’s Point. A faint glimmer of light shone from the uppermost windows.
“Fuck!”
Sam fell onto his bed. It still smelled of her. He pulled out his cellphone and dialed the number for her house. It took some time, but eventually she answered, sounding sleepy and startled.
“Kaia,” he said, practically sobbing her name. “What happened?”
Silence.
“Kaia?”
“You tell me, Sam.”
He felt himself gag again and lurched out of the bed, headed for the bathroom. He made it to the toilet just in time, tripping to the floor and emptying himself of what looked and tasted like several bottles of wine.
“Sam? Are you okay?”
He heard Kaia distantly from his phone, tossed onto the bathroom rug. Kneeling back on his heels, he picked it up. “Ugh, yeah,” he stammered, coughing. “Sorry. I think I’m sick.”
“I can hear that.” Kaia still sounded annoyed, but maybe she was softening. “Where’d you go? I woke up this morning and you were gone.”
“I—I dunno what happened.”
“Are you drunk?”
He covered his eyes as he flushed the toilet and sat on the edge of the tub.
“Sam.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think so. I mean, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been drugged. I can’t remember anything after—after this morning, when I was painting you.”
“Were you drinking while you were painting me? Did you suddenly feel the need to go on a binge? Did things get too real for you?” She sounded hurt, on the edge of crying.
“No,” he replied dully, too zonked to get riled, even though he wanted to defend himself. “I hadn’t even had my morning coffee yet. I just… found myself walking into the house a few minutes ago. I have no idea where the day went.”
“Whatever, Sam,” Kaia said, scoffing. “I’m tired. I was about to go to sleep.” She hung up.
He deserved that. Sam sat with the phone in his hands, staring down at the screen miserably for several minutes, still not sure whether he might puke again. Joni Mitchell came in and mewed her concern. He stroked her between the ears until he felt well enough to stand and light the
candles on the shelf beside the sink.
As he undressed he sniffed something strange coming off his skin—an astringent scent, something he couldn’t define. His skin, when he rubbed his abs and chest, felt salty. His hair was laced with smoke. When he pulled off his jeans, he smelled sex.
He sank into the womblike warmth of the tub. When he began to scrub with a sea sponge, he found something tugging at his mind, caught like a hook. It felt like shame. But shame for what? He hadn’t done anything wrong, as far as he knew, other than cheating on Violet with Kaia. But had it been cheating? He and Violet had never exchanged any promise. They had never even been to each other’s homes, always holding their rendezvous in the back of Violet’s shop. Their relationship had been purely physical and satisfying only to a point.
Kaia was another story. He could feel himself, even now, sinking into a state of hunger for her so bottomless it could easily swallow him whole, and he’d gladly let it. But he was screwing it up. He’d finally found someone who made him believe that this life was one he’d willingly live, a life he’d even choose over the other life that was rightfully his, but now Kaia was slipping away from him. Whatever had happened to him today, it had been his own fault, surely.
Leaning out of the tub to grab his phone, Sam called the Hook and Anchor pub.
“Harvey, hey, it’s Sam Lowell,” he said. “Was I in there today?”
Harvey laughed. “What?”
Sam had little patience at the moment. “Just tell me—did you fucking see me today?” he asked through his teeth.
“No, man,” Harvey replied, affronted by Sam’s tone. “You didn’t come in here. Everything okay?”
Sam ended the call. He’d explain to Harvey some other time. Or not. It hardly mattered. He let his phone drop to the floor and sank into the tub again, shutting his eyes against his misery.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kaia didn’t know what to think.
